Maurice jacobs



(ModeL) M. JACOBS.

PUZZLE. No. 399.146. Patented Mar. 5, 1889.

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UNITED STATES ATENT tries.

lilAURIC'E JACOBS, OF NEW YORK, N. Y.

PUZZLE.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 399,146, dated March 5, 1889.

Application filed December 12, 1888. Serial No. 293,4:07. (ModelJ To aZZ whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, MAURICE JACOBS, a citizen of the United States, residing in the city of New York, county and State of New York, have invented a new and useful Puzzle to be Used for Amusement, Study, and Recreation, of which the following is a specification.

My invention is a puzzle consisting of engaging open links of metal identical in form and capable of engagement with or disengagement from each other only when in particular relative positions.

In the accompanying drawings, Figure 1 shows a single link of the puzzle. Fig. 1 is a view at right angles to the first, the link being inverted. Fig. 1 shows two links in position to be passed into engagement. Fig. 1 shows the same links in one of their many possible positions when engaged.

Each of these links is formed from a single wire bent in its own plane into U shape, and again bent so that both branches of the U are reversed in direction and lie in a plane substantially parallel to the plane of the body of the U. The two ends are then pressed together, as at c! I) c, until the rod forming the other link cannot pass between them. Now if the free ends of two links be brought into the position illustrated at l), and if the links be then moved inv opposite directions, they will be readily engaged. In this movement the two ends of each link pass upon opposite sides of the plane of the ends of the other and tangent, respectively, to each of those l l l 1 ends. X'Yhen the converging ends of one link have thus passed the narrowed space between the ends or the other, the two maybe readily turned into a great variety of positions, among them that shown at 0, but can be disengaged only by an exact reversal of the operation of passing the pairs of ends past each other in putting them together. Until learned the necessary position is not easy to recog nize among a great many similar ones, even after it has once been seen, and is still harder to discover originally. it follows that the puzzle arouses interest and affords diversion to the average American.

\Vhat I claim is 1. In a puzzle of the class described, an open link consisting of a rod bentat its middle to form a plane U, and having both its branches bent back into a plane parallel to the body of the U, the two branches being at their ends only at a distance from each other less than the diameter of the rod itself.

2. The combination, with the U-shaped link having both its branches bent back into a plane parallel to the body of the U and converged toward their free ends, of a second link similar to and engaging the first, and having its body or rod of a diameter greater than the distance between the converged ends of the first, substantially as set forth.

MAURICE JACOBS.

Witnesses:

JOHN DUNNE, J OHN D. THOMAS. 

